


Sunshine in an empty place

by seratonation



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Ghosts, Loneliness, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 08:35:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2575022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seratonation/pseuds/seratonation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>They went for walks sometimes, but they never talk anymore. Not like they used to. Something was wrong with Steve and Bucky couldn’t figure out what it was.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunshine in an empty place

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by _Where Are You Now_ by Mumford and Sons and _Haunt_ by Bastille.

Bucky woke up with a start. It was fine, it was fine, he was home. He tried to get his breathing back to normal and eventually, he managed to get it under control. He couldn't remember much of the nightmare besides the blood, all that blood. 

He shifted and realised his left arm had gone numb from the way he was lying on it. He shifted and slowly, feeling started to come back, the pins and needles working their way from his fingertips all the way to his shoulder. 

He groaned and turned to sleep on his other side. He threw his still mostly-numb arm over Steve’s sleeping form and tried to pull himself close, but Steve shivered and curled away from him. 

He didn’t think too much of it. There was probably a draft coming in from somewhere he couldn’t feel.

***

They went for walks sometimes, but they never talk anymore. Not like they used to. Something was wrong with Steve and Bucky couldn’t figure out what it was. It was like all the fight had gone out of him. 

Bucky tried to fill the quiet, but Steve hardly ever replied, so he stopped trying. He tried to leave a few times, but he always ended up coming back. He didn’t have anywhere to go. He visited their old apartment, alone, but the whole neighbourhood had changed so much. He tried to fill his time but he couldn't deny that he was stuck- trapped- he was connected to Steve. He couldn't leave. 

He always came home, like a spring recoiling. Their lives revolved around each other, and they couldn't escape. 

***

He wasn’t used to living in silence, but if that’s what Steve wanted he was going to damn well try. He resigned himself to watching.

He watched the television. He watched the people at the park, and the people on the streets. But mostly he watched Steve. He watched Steve draw. He watched Steve have his meetings with SHIELD. He watched Steve deny any help. Steve never liked things to just be handed to him. 

Today he watched Steve make dinner. He was humming something so out of tune it was unrecognisable, and Bucky couldn't help smiling. He thought, maybe they didn’t have to talk. Despite everything that had happened, was happening, he wanted to remember Steve like this. 

Bucky didn’t eat. He had lost his appetite a few days- weeks- a while ago and it never came back. He wasn’t too worried. 

He went to sleep thinking that things will get better.

***

“You should call her,” he said, watching Steve leafing through the files, and then look at the phone. 

“What are you afraid of?” he asked, “She’ll be thrilled to know you’re alive, is probably waiting for that call, it was all over the news.”

Steve clenched his jaw and stood up, dropping the files on the table. 

“It’ll help you- us- reconnect with this world,” he said, “isn’t that what SHIELD wants? What Howard would have wanted.”

Steve rubbed at his face vigorously with his hands and sighed. He turned suddenly, surprising Bucky into taking a step back.

“I gotta get out of here,” Steve muttered, walking past him. He grabbed his keys and left without another word. 

Steve doesn’t come home until the early hours of the morning. Bucky was about to greet him when Steve pushed past him and started packing. 

“Steve?” 

Steve only dropped a new pile of papers on top of the other ones and Bucky caught site of the cube.

“They finally convinced you, didn't they?”

Steve wouldn’t look at him, his head buried in his sock drawer as he started to fill a duffle bag with essentials. 

“You don’t need to do this,” he said, “just because they call you, doesn't mean you should go running, _Steve_ , don't you see? This is our chance to get out, to send them a message.”

Steve walked around him to the closet to start folding shirts, his movements starting to become a little more frantic. 

“We could get out, if this is such a danger we could leave, start over,” he pleaded to Steve’s back, “we could finally go see the grand canyon like we said we would.”

There was a knock on the door, so Steve zipped up his bag and left, grabbing the new files on his way out, dislodging the older ones about Peggy and Howard on the ground on his way out. 

“Steve!” Bucky called after him but his only reply was the door slamming shut. 

There were more files on the ground so he bent down to pick them up and caught sight of his own picture. He didn’t realise Steve had this with him. Was that why he’d been so angry?

He pulled the file out from between the others and looked at the big red letters. _Missing in Action_.

Missing in action? He was right here. He could feel his heart starting to beat faster. How did they get here? He remembered the train, falling, how did Steve find him?

He pushed up the top page and found the report underneath, in Steve’s perfect handwriting, and there was nothing. Nothing about a rescue mission, nothing about him being found. 

He remembered being found. He remembered the blood. His arm- he looked down at his left arm and it flickered into something else, something more metallic, only for a second, before going back to normal. The papers fluttered to the ground. He remembered the nightmare from a a few nights ago, and how long ago was it, really? 

How did he get here?

***

The Winter Soldier wakes up. He had been dreaming. He couldn’t remember much, besides sunshine, and pencil on paper. 

It isn’t important. He has a mission.


End file.
